richig07
Well-Known Member
I would defend the importance of any player that was a former batting champ. Tim is a superstar. Not a budding one...He IS one. You can't replace good leadoff hitters and their importance to offensive production. He's one of the few players on our team that other teams would have killed for during the past few years of sh*t on a stick. That hasn't changed this year just because we have better players in the other roster spots.
Good players lead to teams winning...When they're out, teams suffer. There's no question about it and that I was fully confident this team would turn it around immediately when he came back vs a dogsh*t team is zero surprise (although I'm concerned our pitching could do us in today, if we don't hold on). Saying "well, we should be fine with so and so and this and that while Tim is out because we're better" is all fine and dandy, but that isn't reality....and most certainly didn't help us this past week while TA and Edwin were out. We lost games we could have won with them in the lineup. And THAT is where this began.
Dallas Keuchel or any player being upset and voicing his frustration is a tale as old as time in sports...Sometimes that sh*t makes a difference...Sometimes it doesn't. So to quantify it is impossible. To quantify the return of a leadoff batting champ in comparison is lunacy...because one is bona fide on the field and the other is "maybe it mattered, we'll never know."
Tim is not a superstar. He's "darn good". Not a star. Nothing suggests he's a star. He posted a 3.1 and 3.7 WAR the past couple of seasons. "Darn good"... not "great" or "elite".
He's not even an ideal lead-off hitter either. He walks a little over a dozen times per season.